watching the latest episode of the daily show (which SBS for some reason no longer shows) and their discussion of Joe the Plumber, i couldn't but help thinking of the 1955 Asimov short story, Franchise, a short story set in 2008(!), where one man is chosen by a computer to be the voter - whatever his vote is, that stands for the entire country.
it would certainly save a lot of money.
maybe we would be ok with it if we trusted the designers of the computer enough? or the computer itself - would it be apple or IBM? laptop or desktop?
so many decisions.
why don't they (the eligible voters in the USA) just let Joe decide? they might not like his vote, but surely he is as much a product of his society as the rest of them are?
1 comment:
That's a scary thought Doug, but only marginally more scary than the status quo.
(Yep - I'm with you too on mourning The Daily Show!)
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